You can't be Agile when you are knee deep in mud

To be effective with agile software development, you need to have solid technical practices. But many organisations are still only implementing process changes to their software delivery cycles. Rachel will explain why you need technical practices like testing, refactoring, continuous delivery and evolutionary architecture. She will cover a brief history of these practices and explain how without them you will end up with "ball of mud architectures" that slow you down no matter what process changes you make.

Rachel is the Head of Technology for North America at ThoughtWorks and is based in New York. She has over 12 years of experience in software delivery, having worked on a wide range of technologies and the integration of many disparate systems. At ThoughtWorks, she has coached teams on Agile and Continuous Delivery technical practices. She contributes to and drives the regional technology strategy, and is a conduit between the technical teams on the ground and global technical leadership. She is also a member of the Technical Advisory Board to the CTO, which regularly produces the ThoughtWorks Technology Radar. She is fascinated by problem solving and has discovered that people problems are often more difficult to solve than software ones.

About ThoughtWorks

We are a software company and a community of passionate, purpose-led individuals. We think disruptively to deliver technology to address our clients' toughest challenges, all while seeking to revolutionize the IT industry and create positive social change.